The Things We Lost in the Fire
by bookmaniac2013
Summary: "Things we lost to the flames, things we'll never see again, all that we've amassed, sits before us, shattered into ash." A handful of drabbles centered around the characters dealing with their grief after losing Tadashi.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** I don't even know guys, I've fallen so far off the edge with this one. The movie was amazing, but I'll never be over Tadashi's death, so here have a butt load of angst and pain! The one thing I notice when I watched the movie a second time was that Gogo really steps up and acts like a big sibling to Hiro after Tadashi dies, and I loved that dynamic between them. I also shamelessly ship Gogo and Tadashi, so that'll probably show up in the second chapter.

Song behind the title is from Bastille. Not a huge fan but the first couple of lines sum things up pretty damn well so.

Just the one drabble for now, at least one more to come soon. Enjoy!

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><p>Hiro watched in horror as the science center erupted into a ball of flame. Even from yards away, the heat scorched his face and the force of the blast knocked him back off his feet. He didn't even feel the sting of the concrete as it bit into his hands, nor the ache in his skull when it collided with the ground, his only thoughts were of his brother.<p>

"Tadashi, Tadashi!" he yelled, running towards the entrance of the building. He couldn't be gone, he couldn't be dead, this just wasn't happening.

Before he even got close to the building Hiro felt a pair of arms wrap around his waist, holding him back. Hiro didn't even look back to see who it was. It didn't matter. He had to get to Tadashi.

"Hiro, no!" Gogo shouted over the roar of the flames, struggling to pull him away from the burning building. Hiro fought her every step, his arms flailing, trying to push her off, like a man possessed.

"Let me go! He's still in there, we have to save him!" He pleaded frantically, his voice starting to go horse. Why wouldn't she listen to him?

"You can't!" Gogo grunted, holding fast. Ahead of them, firefighters were swarming the building, combating the raging flames with jets of water. None of them tried to enter the building. None of them tried to rescue survivors. They knew there wouldn't be any.

"He's gone, Hiro! And if you go in there you'll die too!"

"I. Don't. Care!" he screamed, trying to yank himself from her grip with each word. Gogo may not have been tall, but she was stronger than she looked, and Hiro was quickly losing steam.

"Do you think this is what Tadashi would want?" Gogo asked. "Do you think he'd want you to just throw your life away? He's gone, Hiro, there's nothing more you can do for him!"

"No! He can't be! He's not dead, Tadashi's not-" Hiro's voice finally broke as he said his brother's name, all the fight in him suddenly dissipating. He stopped struggling and slowly sank to the ground, his desperate screams descending into broken sobs.

Confident he was no longer going to run headlong into a burning building, Gogo relinquished her grip on Hiro. She knelt down in front of him, trying to block out the sight of the burning building. He refused to look at her, part of him still mad that she'd held him back. Tears fell freely down Hiro's face as he clutched Tadashi's hat to his chest, his whole body shaking with the force of each sob. It absolutely broke Gogo's heart.

Gogo gently reached out and placed a hand on Hiro's shoulder, causing him to finally look up at her. Without warning, Gogo pulled Hiro into a hug, wrapping her arms tightly around his shoulders.

"He can't be gone, he can't be..." Hiro cried over and over again, burying his face in Gogo's shoulder, his tears soaking the fabric of her jacket. Gogo held him tighter, tears spilling from her own eyes as the same words echoed endlessly through her mind.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Ok here it is guys! sorry for such the long wait, but alas finals and the holidays got in the way a bit. Therefore, this chapters is more than twice as long as the previous (so much for drabbles, ha). Also, I'm a shameless Tomodashi shipper so that is a rather big part of this part. (Tried my best to keep Gogo in character. I think i did ok).

Enjoy!

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><p>As a result of the fire, the university had postponed all classes and events for the week. It was supposed to give the students time to grieve and adjust, and most of the students welcomed it.<p>

Gogo wasn't most students.

If anything, she threw herself into her work even more than usual. On a normal day, she'd spend hours in the lab, tweaking her bike, adjusting the rims, whatever she could do to make it faster. In the days since the fire, since the funeral, she'd barely left it.

There was no one else there of course. They were all at home with their friends and family, their projects left forgotten around the lab. Gogo took the rare opportunity to blast her own music through the labs speaker system. It was loud enough to cause the windows of the room to vibrate, but she didn't care. It helped her focus; it drowned out the silence, the dark thoughts running circles in her head...

Gogo lost track of how long she worked. Usually her friends would drag her out of the lab with them once the sun started setting, but without them there she ended up working well into the night. It wasn't until her playlist ran out of songs that she even bothered looking up at the clock. 2:13 in the morning, she noted as she went to reset her music, her footsteps echoing across the tile floor as she walked. The absence of music caused the lab to suddenly seem immensely empty despite being cluttered with projects.

She grumbled a bit as she clicked through her music. The magnetic field on her back wheel was fluctuating again, creating friction and decreasing the RPM. She'd already tested four different wheels tonight, but nothing seemed to work. She was running out of ideas...

Just before she hit the 'play' button, Gogo became aware of an obnoxious beeping coming from somewhere nearby. She set her iPod down with a sigh and proceeded to check on the other experiments to make sure they hadn't suddenly malfunctioned and were ready to blow. (It had happened once, there'd been a lengthy lecture afterward). Gogo checked each machine, but none of them showed any signs of spontaneously combusting anytime soon.

The beeping was really starting to get on Gogo's nerves now. Listening carefully, she traced the noise back to one of the personal workstations near the back of the lab. She was about to yank the door open when she noticed the name plaque next to it and froze. _Hamada, Tadashi_, it read.

She nearly turned around and left right then, annoying beeping be damned, but her hand stayed glued to the door, unwilling to let go. It'd been weeks since she'd last been in Tadashi's lab, and truth be told, she'd kind of been avoiding it. It was just too painful. Every little thing already reminded her of him; entering a space where he spent so much of his time just seemed unbearable.

Gogo closed her eyes and leaned her head against the door. "Woman up," she breathed, and pulled it open.

It was pretty much the same organized mess it'd been two weeks ago; no one had had the heart to clean it out yet. A few papers littered the desk and Baymax sat inactive in his station. On top of a stack of books, a small alarm clock was flashing and beeping, its alarms reset after the explosion had temporarily knocked out the building's power.

Gogo hit the off button, thankful to finally be rid of the noise. Instead of returning to her bike, she lingered in the moonlit room, taking it in. Every part of it screamed Tadashi, from the dirty coffee cup on the desk to the large purple bean bag in the corner for when he pulled all-nighters. One of his sweaters even still hung off the back of his chair.

Gogo trailed her fingers across the surface of the desk, as if expecting it to still be warm from his touch, but found it disappointingly cold. They used to spend so much time together in this room, hanging out, brainstorming project ideas, getting drunk on more than one occasion. Whenever she was having a hard time with her projects, or just life in general, she always knew she could find a little bit of peace here. Tadashi was the ray of sunshine to her overcast sky; she only needed to be in his presence to start to feel better. In a way, she'd come to depend on his light, but with him gone, she was only left with darkness.

A collage of pictures had been taped to the wall next to Tadashi's computer. Gogo leaned in to look at them closer. Most of them were of the gang or of Tadashi with Hiro; the time they went to LA for spring break, hanging out in the Hamada's garage helping Hiro with his microbots. Several were just from times they'd all been hanging out; in the lab, out of the lab, at the cafe. Happier times.

One picture in particular caught Gogo's attention. It was of her and Tadashi, not all that long ago, sitting beneath the cherry trees on campus when they were in bloom. It'd been their first date. Well, their first official one. They'd always been close, ever since they first started at SFIT, but the dork had only mustered up the courage to ask her out five months ago. Five months, that's all they'd had as a couple. It was short, but it'd been one of the happiest times of Gogo's life.

Seeing the picture caused an ache to form in Gogo's chest. She touched her fingers to the picture, tracing the image of Tadashi's face. Her vision blurred as tears started to burn her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She took shaky breaths, trying to calm herself down, but she was quickly losing the battle with her emotions. All it took was one escaped sob for her to break down and give in to her grief.

Gogo collapsed into Tadashi's chair and let herself cry - really cry - for the first time in weeks. She let everything out, her grief, her anger, her guilt. She was called 'Gogo' for a reason. Speed was her thing, yet she still hadn't been fast enough to keep her best friend - her boyfriend - from running into that burning building to his death. If only you'd been faster, if only you'd reacted quicker, then maybe he'd still be alive. The thoughts crashed through her head like a wrecking ball, tearing her apart.

She wasn't sure how long she sat there crying, but eventually her eyes ran dry and her sobs reduced to quiet hiccups. With a shaky breath, she wiped away the last of her tears from her cheeks. Her head ached and she was exhausted. She looked up at the wall of pictures again, at all the memories preserved there. Gogo slowly sat up from the chair, her tired limbs protesting at the movement. Slipping her fingers under the thin paper, she pried the picture of her and Tadashi off the wall, careful not to damage it or any of the surrounding photos.

Cradling the picture in her hand, she grabbed Tadashi's old sweater and curled up on top of the beanbag. She folded the sweater under her head like a pillow; it still smelled a little like Tadashi, and she let the comforting scent surround her. The picture she placed next to her head, so it would be the last thing she saw before falling asleep - It was far too late to try and go home now.

Her friends would probably worry about her when they found her here in the morning, but she'd be ok. They had their ways of dealing with things, she had hers.


End file.
